Every once in awhile a private beta comes along that is so hot, that it can literally whip people into a frenzy over the prospect of securing an invite. First it was GMail, then it was the The Venice Project (Joost), and now comes i'm in like with you, the unwieldly named online flirting game and dating site (herein: IILWY) that caused readers of trend-watching blog Josh Spear to get, quote "kinda crazy" and prompted IILWY to offer a free 24 universal invite code as a result.
Yahoo! announced two initiatives today to become, in their words, the "go-to resource for all topics green." That's green as in, environmentally friendly. The first is a competition called Be a Better Planet to find the most eco-friendly city in America. The prize? Carbon credits and a fleet of hybrid taxis. Participants can also earn free compact fluorescent light bulbs for themselves.
More notably, Yahoo! is launching Yahoo! Green, a climate change information portal that includes news, information, and guides to help people cut their carbon emissions and do other things to become more "green."
Last May CBS launched Innertube, an online video site that would allow the network's viewers to watch popular television shows like "CSI" and "Survivor" online for free, as well as bonus content and original mini shows. The site, which was ad supported and used RealPlayer, was ill-conceived from the start since it was put to head-to-head with arguably more attractive offers from CBS (99-cent commercial free downloads of Survivor, and free, sans-commercials on-demand content for Comcast cable subscribers). Eventually CBS also offered content for download on iTunes and clips via YouTube, leaving Innertube in the dust.
But now, CBS has decided that forcing users to come to them just doesn't work, reports the Wall Street Journal. Beginning this month CBS will start to distribute their popular content over ten different online destinations, including AOL and Joost, as part of a new initiative called the CBS Interactive Audience Network. The company is also reportedly working on deals with web 2.0 sites like Facebook, Last.fm -- which recently announced it was adding video, and Slide to distribute their video content over social networks.
During my recent visit to the US, I popped into the Adobe office in San Francisco to find out more about Apollo - the company's new RIA (Rich Internet Application) runtime and development platform. I sat down with Mike Chambers - Apollo Senior Product Manager, developer relations - to figure out what Apollo is all about and where it's headed in the future. Christian Cantrell, another Product Manager on the Apollo team, joined us midway through to show me some of the newest Apollo apps.
In this post, I summarize that meeting - but also I aim to give a kind of 'Apollo for Dummies' overview (because until that meeting I was one of those dummies!). Much of the media and blog coverage of Apollo so far has been focused on what it means for developers, but I have yet to see a cogent explanation of Apollo for end users. So this post is an attempt at that.
Mike started off by explaining to me that Apollo aims to bring web apps to the desktop, in contrast to Microsoft's WPF which comes from the desktop to the Web (it's worth noting though that Mike doesn't believe Apollo competes with WPF). He also told me that an oft-quoted benefit of Apollo, offline access for web apps, is not the main reason Adobe created Apollo. He said the main reason is to break out of the restrictions of the browser, with a richer UI. Essentially Adobe is aiming to create a new type of runtime, one that allows end users to run web apps on the desktop - as an alternative or complement to the browser.
Apollo is still in the alpha phase - and indeed Apollo won't be the final brand name for the product (the new name hasn't yet been decided, or at least is being kept under wraps for now). The public beta will be early summer US, with the official 1.0 release slated for late fall / early winter 2007.
Forrester has just released a new report on Enterprise RSS. Specifically it tackles the issue of information overload in the corporate environment, now that RSS feeds are an important source of information in the workplace. Also it covers how IT departments are becoming more interested in enterprise RSS solutions, particularly from 3 vendors who seem to be doing very well out of this market: Attensa, KnowNow, and NewsGator.
Forrester sent a free copy of the report to Read/WriteWeb, so here is a quick review of its contents.
I think we all know about the issue of information overload - and the resulting value of good filters and smart aggregators. In some ways the problem is worse for enterprise employees - because as well as external news sources, they have potentially hundreds of internal RSS feeds to track via company blogs and wikis.
In the report, Forrester recommends that companies purchase "an enterprise RSS solution". Three vendors in particular are mentioned: Attensa, KnowNow, and NewsGator. Each of these vendors has an RSS solution that runs behind the firewall. The below diagram from Forrester nicely captures the value that such solutions provide:
Simply Google is an unofficial portal for Google apps and services. Charles Knight mentioned it in his original Top 100 Alt Search Engines List, as an example of how the famously sparse Google homepage could be enhanced. In Charles' words:
"Instead of squeezing through the keyhole in order to reach Google's 37 search options, Simply Google places all of those choices and many, many more all on the very first page; neatly arranged in columns."
Simply Google creator Chris McEvoy described it recently as "my attempt to expose the hidden google information architecture." While you wouldn't expect Google to sacrifice its super-effective simple homepage for one with hundreds of options, the Simple Google homepage at least demonstrates how many apps Google has to offer these days. No wonder Google almost changed its tagline to "Search, Ads & Apps"!
Here is a summary of the week's Web Tech action on Read/WriteWeb. Apologies for missing last week's wrapup, due to travel.
Note that you can subscribe to the weekly wrapups, either via the special RSS feed or by email:
This week we saw a lot of action on the Web Office suite front. Firstly Comcast announced their SmartZone Communication Hub, essentially an online office suite based on Zimbra's collaboration suite - plus Plaxo and HP. Perhaps more exiting was the launch of an open standards based Web Office suite the next day, in the form of ShareOffice - built using iNetOffice, EditGrid, ShareMethods, and salesforce.com. There are more components to be added, based on an open standards framework called OpenSAM (which stands for "open simple AJAX mashup").
In this post we analyze how web 2.0 companies are bringing price trending tools, traditionally found on Wall St, to the masses. We take a look at these latest consumer internet innovations, and try to understand if they are useful and if they can succeed. The companies reviewed in this post are Farecast, Mpire and Trulia.
When it comes to buying things, people differ a lot. Some buy on impulse, others spend weeks researching. People who buy quickly enjoy the adrenaline rush of the purchase and a lot of free time. The methodical hunters are willing to exchange hours of patience for the satisfaction of buying just the right product. What hunters are looking for is to buy what they want at the price they like to pay.
I have just returned from my jaunt to Italy, and I'd like to share the amazing new search engines that were introduced in the comments section of the Top 100 Alternative Search Engines for April; they are a veritable treasure trove of new discoveries! These new entrants will likely cause a major shakeup in the May Update of the Top 100, so here's your chance to evaluate them first! Please leave your comments - which ones impress you? Which ones don't? Are there any others?
Social network Facebook is set to launch a classified service to its users on Friday, according to the New York Times. The service will be free, though Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg told the Times that the classifieds, which will launch under the name 'Facebook Marketplace,' might someday provide a source of revenue for the company.
Users will be able to create classifieds in four categories: housing, jobs, for sale, and other. Ads can be restricted by network or friends list, and can be broadcast to a user's "news feed" -- which is a Twitter-like stream of information about the actions of a user's friends.
